I have a bike I composed entirely of free or donated parts, it serves life well as a bar/superbeater bike.

The only spare cranks I had were 180mm Sugino AT's, a very nice crank but freakin' long for most any normal use. Take into account the fact its a "race" inspired geometry, went from 27"'s to 700c, and had platform pedals on it and I was scraping pedals almost perpetually.

This led me to have to swap to a freewheel for the meantime in order to ride with any margin of safety, until I can scrounge up something shorter at least.

So, 170's aren't that bad at all - try 180's. Anyone want to trade.....?

I have only hit my pedal to the ground twice. The first I was going pretty slow, but was making a u-turn and it just barely scraped the ground not even enough to lift the rear tire though. The other time was really bad though. I squeezing between a car and a curb when bam! it nearly sent me flying of my bike. Got my blood pumping to say the least. I run 165mm cranks and while not a true track frame the old khs that I ride is not nearly as low as a road frame. . . i don't think

The only time I've scraped pedal on my fixed is when traffic is stopped and I'm trying to make my way along the curb to the intersection. Some of those cars inexplicably like to put themselves about 6 inches from the curb so you really have to squeeze in. I'm usually going pretty slow and can anticipate it happening, but it still happens. I've got in a habit of slapping the hood of the greedy cars when they cause me to catch my pedal. MOVE OVER!

slap em with your wet towel next time...

I hate it when gravity fu*ks with me and my fixed riding brothas.

I think its more likely that Newton is fu*king with you with his third law.

with a with a with a what?

Dude a fixie who doesn't watch the tour is like...like...
oh nevermind the analogy.

It was stage 2 Eisel for Fdjeaux.com I think he fell 'cause
he was trying to fix his pedal and he touched wheels and went down.
All the crap fell out of his jersey and it ruled.

jeff

oh and pedal strike sucks

I love getting the pedal strike as much as I love getting shoelaces caught in my drive train. Its a funny, different than usual experience that keeps me smiling as I topple off the bike and straight onto the pavement.

I'm really surprised that most of you don't run into this more often. I started out riding fixed on a track frame, and never had pedal strike issues, but when I moved to a fixed gear specific frame (gunnar street dog) with 165 road cranks and a 113 or 115 BB spindle, I had lots of pedal strike during cornering. Sometimes the rear wheel would hop but usually I would end up on the sidewall or something and it would take me down. This is with a fairly high BB, drop in the 60s. I stole the cranks and BB off of the track bike for a 109 spindle and a lower Q factor, still 165s. This seems to have solved the problem along with lower profile pedals (535 SPD).

Still, when I buy my next frame I will be looking for a BB drop in the 50s (like my track frame had).

Reminds me of when my cleat failed on my fixed on time when I was really hauling ass. My foot sprung up and got tangled in my handlebars while my pedal was dragging my other foot through my cadence. I thought I broke my ass -- had a bruise 8" across.

wow. was the bruise from the subsequent fall?